A Busy June

 June is always one of our busiest months.  We started off with our 24th anniversary!  We went to dinner at a little Mexican restaurant right by our house, and we suddenly realized that Maren's two best friends were having dinner at the table right behind ours!  So they joined us for a minute so we could send a picture to Maren.

We ended the night with a sunset hike.  So grateful to be married to Dustin!  He is my best friend.

Our next door neighbors of 16+ years, moved!  We are sad!  Our kids have grown up together, and it is going to be weird without them next door.

Dustin and I were invited to attend the sealing of our friends from the Marshallese Branch.  It was sweet.  We love serving in the Branch!

Avery came home to visit for a couple of days, so we wandered the Bountiful Chalk Art Festival.  I love summer nights!  We have the best weather here in the evenings.

My dog's favorite place.

Maren had her 20th birthday on her mission!  She got to call us that day and open her package while we were on with her.  She was also well taken care of by the people in California!  

We love our missionary girl and are so proud of her for serving!  She is so good at loving the people she is with and having fun and working hard!  We love our weekly calls and have loved to hear about the joy she feels as she serves!  She is blessing our family!  Plus, the next day she got an extra birthday present...

Something awesome happened!!  Maren's mission president heard that Ryan would be leaving for his mission before Maren got home, so he encouraged her to have him come see her and attend the temple together before he left.  It took a little figuring out, but we were able to fly him to San Jose on the day after Maren's birthday, where Nicole and her kids picked him up and drove the 3 hours to where Maren lives.  They met at the Feather River temple and did baptisms for the dead with her, her companion (Sister Dalley) and their new converts.  Then all of them went to dinner nearby.  It was only a few hours together, but it made my momma heart happy to receive these pictures and know that they were together again!  Ryan said it was awesome to see her and they were both so happy!  We were so grateful to Nicole for being willing to drive him up to see her. 

In the meantime, the rest of us were making our way toward Nicole's house for a family vacation.  We stopped at the Sacramento Temple to do Baptisms for the Dead, and the funny thing was, Nicole, Ryan and Maren were only about 45 minutes north of us while we were there!  After the temple, we ended up meeting up with Nicole, her kids, and Ryan for ice cream and then we all drove on to Nicole's house near Santa Cruz.  So close to Maren, and yet, so far...

We spent the next few days at Nicole's house, going to the beach, playing with cousins, and exploring more of California.  So fun!

Dustin had been wanting to get a UC Santa Cruz t-shirt (their mascot is the banana slug), so we drove to campus and walked around for a bit, and then went to the Botanic Gardens right there on campus.

That night we did the Santa Cruz boardwalk with some of Nicole's kids.  Ivy cut her leg badly, just a few days before we came into town, and she couldn't walk very easily or get it wet, so they met us here and there for activities, and we took the rest of her girls when we could.

Nicole, Ivy and Flora did come have pizza with us at the boardwalk before we went back to her house.

So much fun at Nicole's house!

We went to Capitola the next day and had lunch and played at the beach (those of us who could).  We did a lot of beach volleyball and it was a lot of fun!

The next day our family went to Monterrey Bay and then drove the 17 mile road (and stopped for some super cheap avocados.  9 for a dollar!).

The drive was beautiful, with cool beaches and forests.  It ended with the Pebble Beach Golf Club.

Our kids were mortified that we dared walk out near the 18th hole, haha!  But, the employees told us we could, and Dustin had always wanted to see it.  So we endured their mortifications.  

Tide pooling on the drive back to Nicole's house.

The next day was Father's Day!  We made yummy breakfast, and went to church and had a delicious dinner afterwards.

And then we said goodbye, and left the Craguns and drove on to Yosemite National Park.  We stayed in a cabin at Yosemite Pines RV Park.

The next morning we got up early to beat the crowds and drove into Yosemite.  It was amazing!  So beautiful!  And actually, so so scary of a drive!  We started at the top and drove on a scenic (super high and scary) drive all the way down to the bottom of the canyon.

Our first stop was Bridal Veil Falls.  So pretty!

We passed El Capitan many times and it was amazing.

We saw a coyote along the road.

It was such a beautiful place!  We stopped multiple times to get out and walk and take pictures.  I'm sure we drove our kids nuts, but how could we pass this up?!

We finally made it to the hike we had planned to take--the Mist Trail to Vernal Falls.  We lucked out with our weather.  It was not too hot and it made the long hike really nice!

Vernal Falls has an elevation gain of 1,100 feet and a lot of the gain was at the very end with those stairs (you can see them in the background).  The waterfall was so beautiful!

I wasn't sure if I would dare do the last stretch up to the top of the falls.  I had researched it beforehand and I knew that it had this scary part with the steep edge.  But, the railing helped, and I just didn't look over the side at all and I made it up and back down a little later.  No helicopter ride off the edge needed!

Other random family member in our picture...

The second bridge was as far as we went.  It was getting hot and our kids were done.  Going down the stairs went a lot faster (as it always does).

So beautiful!

Everyone was pretty tired by the time we finished the hike, so we did one more quick hike to Yosemite Falls and then headed back to our cabin for Pizza Factory in the nearby town and then relaxing that night (we watched Ryan Trahan on Youtube, 50 states in 50 days--and ended up watching it most of the summer.  Kind of fun!).

The next morning we didn't get up quite as early, and the crowds and lines were a little longer.  We rented bikes (and got the very last of the bikes at the rental shop!) and rode all over Yosemite for a few hours.  We stopped at the Ansel Adams museum and rode to Yosemite Falls again.  We also rode to the Ahwahnee Hotel and looked around and enjoyed their great views of Half Dome.  We rode up to Mirror Lake and played in the water for an hour, but it was SO cold!  The bikes were a great way to see Yosemite Valley again on the second day!

Lunch in the trees near our car.  It was so hard to find a parking spot, there was no way we were going to leave it once we found it!

We returned the bikes and got some much needed ice cream and then drove on to a different part of the park.

A co-worker had told me about hiking to see the Sequoia's, and everyone was tired and not sure if they had another hike in them, but we decided to push it (as we always do) and we were so glad we did!  This was one of our favorite parts of Yosemite!  The Tuolumne Grove hike led down to Giant Sequoia's, some alive and some that had fallen down that we could climb all over and even walk through.  Pretty cool! 

That night we made dinner in our cabin and the next morning we got up, cleaned up and drove the long drive home!  We came out of Yosemite on a different side and got to see some new and beautiful views!  Then we drove home through parts of Nevada that we had never seen and even stopped in Ely, where my Grandpa Montgomery lived as a small child.  We were exhausted, but it was such a fun trip!

A couple of days later was the Losee Reunion, and we debated going because a) we were exhausted still and b) our boys both had to work and mow lawns.  But, we have a hard time saying no to family, so Dustin and I drove down and stayed in my parent's trailer with them.  No tent setup made it a lot easier!

The next day was Avery's 22nd birthday!  She and her friends came up for dinner and cake that evening and that was fun.

We love Avery so much!  She is staying very busy with school, working two jobs (a secretary and a nanny) and a fun social life, but we are always grateful for time we can spend with her!  She works hard, tries hard to follow the Spirit and serve others, and she brings us joy with her laughter and sweet hugs!  I can't believe she is 22!!  She is a blessing in our family!

The next week was Youth Conference for our boys.  We said goodbye on Thursday morning (but don't worry, we joined them a couple of days later).

On Friday, I went down to Provo to visit my friend Jacque and her daughter, who were up from Arizona to look at wedding dresses.  Jacque was my roommate and bestie all through college, and we have stayed close all these years.  Allyssa is just a couple of months older than Avery, so we went to lunch and then had fun watching Allyssa try on dresses.  So crazy to have these girls so grown up!

The next day was our day to help on the food committee for Youth Conference.  We had the easiest day ever!  We picked up 25 Costco pizzas and took them to the group, who were getting ready to float down the Weber River.  They ate and then we met them at the end of the river run with more food.  So fun to see them all and help in this small way!

Summer time=eating outside time.  My favorite!

And, Ryan got some serious temporary tattoos with his friends.  He loved the attention it brought them when they went to dinner at In-N-Out, but it wasn't very fun for the next few days as he scrubbed and scrubbed to get them off before he went through the temple the next week.  But, it did give him good material for his farewell talk in church, haha!

It's funny because I was thinking that this summer hasn't been as crazy as usual (I am writing this post at the beginning of August).  But, as I look over all these pictures, I realize that it has been about as busy as usual for our family!  But, all good things!!